Garrison Keillor, here in New York City, will be at CMAC on Thursday.

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Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion - his long-running entertainment confection, modeled after the radio variety shows of his youth - soothes a stressed-out nation each Saturday afternoon. His books carry the same distanced, observational, concerned, comforting tone of a man watching his small-town neighbors from the shade of his verandah. No matter how comic their actions, Keillor is always polite in his observations, never mocking. This is what you would expect of a man from Lake Wobegon, Minn.

That's the fantasy. In reality, the Garrison Keillor you think you know does not ...